{"id":400648,"date":"2025-09-05T18:34:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T18:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/400648\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T18:34:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T18:34:18","slug":"a-family-member-raised-hell-over-prince-william-and-prince-harry-walking-behind-dianas-coffin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/400648\/","title":{"rendered":"A Family Member “Raised Hell” Over Prince William and Prince Harry Walking Behind Diana’s Coffin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday, September 6 will mark the 28th anniversary of Princess Diana’s funeral<\/a>, and one memory that’s stuck in the public’s minds is the image of Prince Harry<\/a> and Prince William<\/a> walking behind their mother’s coffin<\/a> through the streets of London. But in Prince Harry’s memoir<\/a>, Spare, he revealed that one member of his family fought for the boys to be left out of the funeral procession.<\/p>\n

In the book, the Duke of Sussex wrote of the period leading up to his mother’s 1997 funeral<\/a>, recalling, “There was some discussion about the next day\u2019s funeral. Per the latest plan, the coffin would be pulled through the streets on a horse-drawn carriage by the King\u2019s Troop while Willy and I followed on foot.” Harry continued, “It seemed a lot to ask of two young boys,” noting that “several adults were aghast” and “Mummy\u2019s brother, Uncle Charles, raised hell.”<\/p>\n

As the younger brother of Diana and head of the Spencer family, Charles, Earl Spencer, was the one who ultimately made the decision for Diana to have a royal funeral<\/a>, as revealed in former Buckingham Palace press secretary<\/a> Dickie Arbiter’s memoir, On Duty With The Queen.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

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\"Prince\n<\/p>\n

Prince Philip (far left), Earl Spencer (center) and Prince Charles (far right) joined Harry and William to walk behind Diana’s coffin. <\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

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\"Prince\n<\/p>\n

Princess Diana’s funeral took place on September 6, 1997.<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

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\"Spare\"\n<\/p>\n

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Per the duke, Earl Spencer said, “You can\u2019t make these boys walk behind their mother\u2019s coffin!” calling the idea “barbaric.” Aides then came up with “an alternative plan” that proposed Prince William “would walk alone,” Harry wrote. “He was fifteen, after all. Leave the younger one out of it. Spare the Spare.”<\/p>\n

That plan was scrapped, with the Duke of Sussex writing, “Back came the answer. It must be both princes. To garner sympathy, presumably.” Although his “Uncle Charles was furious,” Harry said he wasn’t. “I didn’t want Willy to undergo an ordeal like that without me. Had the roles been reversed, he’d never have wanted me\u2014indeed, allowed me\u2014to go it alone.”<\/p>\n

In the end, The King (then Prince Charles<\/a>), Earl Spencer and Prince Philip<\/a> joined the young princes to walk behind Diana’s coffin en route to Westminster Abbey. After Prince Philip’s 2021 death<\/a>, former government relations director Anji Hunter told the Standard <\/a>about his involvement in the days leading up to the funeral.<\/p>\n

“We were all talking about how William and Harry should be involved and suddenly came Prince Philip\u2019s voice,” she told the media outlet. “We hadn\u2019t heard from him before, but he was really anguished. ‘It\u2019s about the boys,’ he cried, ‘They\u2019ve lost their mother.'” According to the media outlet, Philip told his grandsons the night before the funeral, “I\u2019ll walk if you walk.”<\/p>\n

Get exclusive access to fashion and beauty trends, hot-off-the-press celebrity news, and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday, September 6 will mark the 28th anniversary of Princess Diana’s funeral, and one memory that’s stuck in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,7721,7719,7718,7720,1281,447,7710,519,7711],"class_list":{"0":"post-400648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-duchess-of-sussex","10":"tag-duke-of-sussex","11":"tag-harry","12":"tag-meghan","13":"tag-meghan-markle","14":"tag-prince-harry","15":"tag-royal-families","16":"tag-royal-family","17":"tag-uk-royal-family"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115153133154227053","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}